The Aective Tigger a study on the construction of an emotionally reactivetoy by Dana Kirsch BS CognitiveScience Massachusetts Institute of Technology Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences Scho ol of Architecture and Planning in partial fulllmentof the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Media Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology June c Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved Signature of Author Program in Media Arts and Sciences Mayth Certied by Rosalind W Picard Asso ciate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Program in Media Arts and Sciences Accepted by Stephen A Benton Chair Departmental Committee on Graduate Students Program in Media Arts and Sciences The Aective Tigger a study on the construction of an emotionally reactivetoy Dana Kirsch Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences Scho ol of Architecture and Planning on May th in partial fulllmentofthe requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Media Technology Abstract The AectiveTigger is a toythatresp onds to the user or playmate in a natural and emotive manner Sp ecicallythe AectiveTigger recognizes and reacts to the emotion the child is exhibiting For example when the child is happily playing with the Aective Tigger she mightmoveand hold him in a manner that expresses this happiness she mightbounce him along the o or or hug and kiss him The Aective Tigger senses this physical interaction for example he mightrecognize that the child is b ouncing him and outwardly expresses his own happiness in turn In this manner the Aective Tigger is b oth mimicking the mo o d expressed bythechild and reacting to a b ehavior exhibited bythechild namely b ouncing him The AectiveTiggerwas evaluated by assessing the appropriateness of his resp onses to the child In twelve playsessions children were invited into the MIT Media Lab oratory to playwiththe AectiveTigger The results from these trials illustrated that three year olds are just b eginning to recognize emotions in others four year olds are in the pro cess of discovering an awareness of other and veyear old children are well on their way to developing empathyand other advanced emotional resp onses It was also shown that a simple sensorbased b ehavior system suchasthe one in the AectiveTigger is sucientto pro duce the comp elling app earance that the AectiveTigger has feel ings of his own The big question however remains unanswered could a child learn from rep eated exp osure playing with the AectiveTigger to recognize feelings and to resp ond appropriately to them Thesis Advisor Rosalind W Picard Asso ciate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Sp ecial thanks to myadvisor Roz Picard for her suggestion of building a Tigger that resp onds to emotional expression and for her patience Bruce Blumberg for generating the spark that ignited this pro ject Hiroshi Ishii for challenging me to extend myself Fred Martin for his help with the Handy Board Linda Kiley for all her assistance Chris Metcalfe for his voice and Cole Porter for all those sanityfetchbreaks For the duration of this thesis the child will b e referred to as a she and Tigger as a he to avoid confusion The Aective Tigger Thesis Committee Thesis Reader Hiroshi Ishii Asso ciate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology Thesis Reader Bruce Blumberg AssistantProfessor of Media Arts and Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology Contents Intro duction Pro ject Motivations The Call for the Formalization of Emotional Education in Scho ols Aective Computing Related Work Child Development Moral Assumptions Emotional Recognition in the Very Young Infant Emotional Expression in the Infant Acquisition of a Sense of Self and Other The Emergence of Empathyinthe Prescho oler The Role of PlayintheEmotional Developmentofa Child The theoretical use of the AectiveTiggerasatoolfor the emo tional education of children with developmental impairments suchasautism Pilot Study Playing with a Stued Animal Recognizing Tiggers Expressions Redesigning the AectiveTigger Preliminary Conclusions Constructing an ExpressiveToy Design Goals and Philosophy Huggable Computing Theory WhyitwillWork Description of the AectiveTigger Phase Expression Phase Detection Phase Recognition Description of the Child for Which the AectiveTigger is Intended Emotional Sensitivity The Child Trials Metho d Sub jects Data Quantication Pro cedure Summary of Results and Discussion from the Child Trials Error Analysis Evaluation The Plush The Child Conclusion A Lab oratory Pro cedures B The Release Forms for the Aective Tigger Trials B ConsentForm for the MIT communityfor the AectiveTigger pro ject B ConsentForm for the California Community for the AectiveTigger pro ject B Video Tap e Consent C Do cuments for the AectiveTigger Child Trials C The Story Line for the AectiveTigger C Preliminary Questions for the AectiveTiggerChild Trials C Debrieng the AectiveTigger trial C The FollowupPhone call D Quantied Results D The Indep endent Data Collection Survey E Cost Estimate for the AectiveTigger Toy F Ab out the Author F Publications F Awards F Other Chapter Intro duction The Aective Tigger is a pro ject to construct an emotionally reactive and emotion ally expressivetoy Anemotionally reactivetoyisone that recognizes emotionally laden cues from the playmate or resp onds to the playmate with an expression of an emotion The AectiveTiggerdoesboth Hop efullyasthechild plays with the AectiveTigger she learns to recognize his expressions and b egins to notice a causal relationship b etween her b ehavior and his resp onses Eventuallyshe might recognize his expressions as either a p ositiveornegative reaction to her b ehavior The larger goal is for her to generalize that her actions havesocial consequences At the same time weare observing the form that the childcomputer interaction takes on and we are b eginning to extrap olate what kinds of mo dications to maketothe computer toyWeareinterested in howtochildpro of computer interfaces while maintaining the sense of child orientedness inherentina toy There are three phases that comprise the AectiveTigger pro ject expression de tection and recognition Expression refers to the capabilityoftheAective Tigger to communicate his emotional state to the child The AectiveTigger uses facial move ments voice and resp onsiveness to demonstrate his current state Detection refers to the AectiveTiggers sensory capabilities As the child plays with the Aective For more information on dening and distinguishing emotions see Arnold MB Ekman P Friesen WV Ellsworth P Frijda NH Izard Carol and Kagan J Tigger she naturally holds and moves him in a manner that is emotionally expressive The Aective Tigger is designed to sense sp ecic cues which corresp ond to the childs expression of emotion Finallythe recognition phase consists of trials with children to evaluate the Aective Tigger according to the appropriateness of his reactions to the child This phase concluded with b oth an evaluation of the AectiveTiggers behavioral system and an assessmentof the childs level of emotional development Pro ject Motivations The Aective Tigger pro ject concerns b oth the construction of an emotionally reac tivetoyand the so cialemotional awareness education of the child In fact the two are intimately linked The study of the developmentof emotional intelligence lends itself to the construction of a computertoyThis construction pro cess itself provides meaningful insightinto the emotional developmentofchildren whichinturn drive the construction pro cess and redesign in a cycle of progress The Call for the Formalization of Emotional Educa tion in Scho ols The emotional education debate includes big questions like whydoweneed to teach children ab out emotions in scho ol at all and howshouldsuch teachings b e imple mented Scho ols are torn b etween taking resp onsibilityfor the emotional education of its students and with it the liability when things dont go as planned and leaving it as it is to dayuptothe parents Educators long disturb ed byscho ol childrens lagging in math and read ing are realizing there is a dierentand more alarming deciency emo tional illiteracy Signs of the deciency can b e seen in violentincidents Emotional Intelligence is a term used extensively by Daniel Goleman that refers to ones ability to rein in emotional impulse to read anothers innermost feelings to handle relationships smo othly is as Aristotle put it the rare skill to b e angry with the rightperson to the rightdegree at the righttimefor the rightpurposeandintherightway Goleman suchasthesho oting of Ian and Tyrone growing ever more common in American scho ols Goleman Most so cial scientists agree with Daniel Goleman that there is a need for emotional education in a formalized setting Recentevents like the April scho ol sho oting at the Littleton High Scho ol in Colorado continue to op en the eyes of the public to the problems that can accompanyanunderdevelop ed emotional intelligence While some scientists havebeen studying the eects of the emotional developmentofchildren